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  • Gently Bentley

    Gently Bentley

    As usual I ride too fast for the first hour. I know I’m riding too fast but I don’t like suburban London roads so the quicker I get off them the better. Also the weather forecast is generally good so I’ve brought the CAAD rather than the commuter slash winter audax bike. I always get carried away on the CAAD. It makes me want to ride fast. However the plan was steady away and efficient stops – make good time by not stopping for long rather than hammering round. Somewhere in Windsor Forest sense prevails and I ease off to a more sustainable pace. However I know I will regret this first hour later. In fact I regret it about 10 minutes later when the road bears left, exits the forest, and the landscape opens up so the full force of the wind can be felt. The road is long and straight and undulates and it hurts.

    In Wargrave I catch a bunch of riders at some lights just as another bunch arrive behind me. I follow the Thames for a handful of kilometres to Henley at pace with ease in this large group. Then all of a sudden there’s someone on my outside slaloming cat’s eyes to avoid oncoming cars. There’s random slowing going on and overlapping of wheels. Then someone near the front takes their hands off their bars and stretches in a crucifix pose. Jesus Christ! I remember why I avoid riding in rag tag groups of people I don’t know. Entering Henley I decide to bounce the control and get some clear road around me.

    Catching the edge of the Chilterns the roads start to rise and fall. Somewhere I pass a sign for Oxfordshire. I wasn’t expecting that. Crossing the toll bridge at Whitchurch-On-Thames I decide I need a coffee and some grub. Seventy seven kilometres down, over a third done, seems as good a place as any. In Pangbourne there’s a Coop and a Costa but I spot an independent café between them on the other side of the road, so I opt for this. Possibly a mistake as it’s expensive, they forget my order, and when it does arrive the coffee is dreadful. I leave disappointed and ten minutes later than I intended.

    The route turns south not long after this and the wind becomes a bit more friendly, more of a shove on the shoulder than a smack in the face. Some red kites are swirling and diving above a field, it looks like they are playing and having fun. I recognise the roads and place names from a previous ride but can’t think which, maybe the ride back from volunteering at the Lambourn control on LWL last year. On the climb after Upton Grey towards Lasham I feel strangely sick, so much so I think I might need to stop. For a few minutes I feel really ill. Odd, never felt like this riding before. Something I’ve eaten? But I’ve hardly eaten anything…ah hang on, that’s probably the problem. I need food. 110km on a banana for breakfast and a sausage roll at 77km. I probably burned all those calories in that fast first hour.

    The queue in the garden centre café at the Lasham control is huge so reluctantly I don’t bother stopping and hope I find something in the next few kilometres. I don’t, but fortunately the next few kilometres gently angle downwards. Bentley is smaller than I anticipated and I don’t find a shop until Churt, back up a hill of course, at 141km. Phew. Cheese and pickle sarnie and a bottle of juice sitting on the astro turf next to a giant Costa Coffee cup outside the Spar.

    The next section through Elstead is vaguely familiar from my teenage years riding in the area. A hail shower for a few minutes makes me question my kit choice briefly. Showers mid-afternoon were possible on the forecast, I don’t remember seeing hail though. To my left through the trees blue sky so it shouldn’t last long, and it doesn’t. I find myself in Puttenham and I’m on 30 year old home roads. Wet roads. Seems the rain is ahead of me. Over the Hog’s Back, Normandy, Wanborough, Pirbright, Brookwood. I hammered around these roads on a Peugeot and then a Raleigh racing bike between the ages of 15 and 19. After the Brookwood control, the supermarket in the army barracks, it’s yet more familiar roads around Old Woking and Send. Ducking under a tree that’s fallen across the road in Ripley I continue to Cobham on lanes I know from other southwest London audaxes.

    The Esher road from Cobham is the usual boring drag that always goes on for longer than I remember or want it to. Waiting at the lights on Esher High Street my legs sense the end is near. My speed increases to this morning’s pace along the main road to Surbiton before zigging and zagging through residential streets (and noting the location of the train station) to the arrivée.

    Back before six p.m., 208km in under 10 hours. That was the aim so happy with that, and I know I could have knocked 30 mins off that with better pacing and fuelling. Not sure I want to do next month’s 300 on the CAAD though, fancy a bit more comfort. I need to rebuild the Reilly.

    Thanks to Kingston Wheeler’s audax branch for the organising, route planning and the meal at the finish. My second KW audax after Wander Wye last year, and I’ll be back for Amesbury Amble next month.

    Route https://www.strava.com/activities/2220636259

  • The Route to the Silver Dollar Moment

    The Route to the Silver Dollar Moment

    Earlier this year I saw that The Orielles were going to be on tour in February. No Brighton show but there was one in Bristol on a Sunday night. Hmm, I thought, there are plans for later in the year that require long distance training, I’ve ridden to Bristol a few times before, I have friends there, take a day’s holiday from work, ride over on Saturday, ride back Monday. Sort of made sense. Five minutes later I had a ticket booked. A few weeks later I discovered that James Yorkston was doing an in-store at Rough Trade Bristol earlier the same evening as it would be launch weekend for the new album. Having heard some of the new songs at a show in London in December this was not to be missed. Excellent, bonus gig. Time to get route plotting…

    — — — —

    I leave early, before sunrise, in order to cover the early kilometres on known roads in the dark and avoid riding too many of the narrow lanes I don’t know across the Cotswolds later in the day in the dark. It’s going to be an all day ride and because it’s only February daylight hours are still relatively short. Having said that the forecast is ridiculous for the time of year, sunny all day and high temps. In long sleeves and legs and gilet I suspect I’m over dressed but at dawn there is still the sharpness of winter in the air. [I have totally lucked out, when this was all planned – and I’m using the word planned in a very loose sense – I was well aware it could be snowing. Train timetables have been checked just in case.]

    I’ve decided to use the suburban roads along the coast as far as Littlehampton before cutting inland to Chichester. Usually I’d avoid this whole area, mostly because of traffic, partly because it’s suburban and dull. Why ride through housing estates when the South Downs are just a few miles north? However it’s also flat as a pancake and being early the roads will be empty. Factor in the tailwind that is forecast it will also be quick. Any time made up now will help when the inevitably steep bits of the Cotswolds hit my tiring legs later. Sunrise happens as I pass Ferring Beach, the low tide far out across the mud and shingle. Before I know it I’m in the flatlands between the coast and Chichester. Around 8am I stop for a coffee and bacon sarnie at a caff in Barnham.

    My previous experience of Chichester is all dual carriageways, ring roads, and roundabouts. It’s an awful place to get across or around on a bike so getting through here before the shoppers wake up is another good reason for having set off pre-dawn. Out past Chichester I’m on the road up and over Harting Down. I’m into the pretty stuff now. The boring functional bit out of the way the bike ride proper has started…and the weather is flaming glorious. Briefly. Over Harting Down I sink into fog trapped between the hills. I find I’m suitably dressed again. The cold damp mist lingers for a good few miles before thinning and disappearing somewhere in the Meon Valley. The warmth returns. I realise all the times I’ve ridden west I’ve not passed through the valley before, usually I’m up on one of the ridges either side. I must remember this flat option between Petersfield and Winchester. It doesn’t last forever, and I soon find myself climbing over Wheely Down on familiar roads.

    The raked winter light is beautiful, sunshine falling slanted, shadows stretching long across the land even at midday. There’s a diluted look to everything as if painted in watercolour. The saturation of spring is still a way off, a reminder that’s it’s still not quite spring despite the rolled up sleeves and unzipped jersey.

    What is less pleasant is the amount of rubbish on the side of the roads. With hedgerows and verges not overgrown before spring growth it is so apparent how much junk gets thrown out of car windows. Drinks cans (and who the hell needs all these energy drinks simply to sit on their arse), Macdonald’s cartons (one downside of having an instantly recognisable logo is we can see how much of your needless packaging ends up not in a bin), plastic water bottles, crisp bags and fag packets. It’s a dismal state of affairs and absolutely fucking depressing.

    Past Winchester, across A roads and a motorway, follow a river through softly curving hills, the undulations of Salisbury Plain dragging on the legs. Old Sarum Castle. A bright yellow butterfly floats by. In the Wylye Valley I realise it’s been a while since I’ve eaten and I’m not going to find any shops for a while. An emergency fruit juice and bag of crisps from a pub about to close. That gets me to a petrol station for a sarnie and a coffee so bad it’s poured down a drain. Lanes through Longleat Estate, which is part of Wiltshire Cycleway but feels like trespassing (and those lions are behind a fence aren’t they?) An industrial estate on the edge of Frome. Into the Cotswolds.

    I’m glad those first forty kilometres were flat because the next forty are going to corkscrew in and out of tight valleys. The sun drops as the hills ramp up. Run out of water just as I spot a chippy down a sidestreet in Radstock. Water bottle filled I climb out of the town as the sky glows pink for a moment and then it’s twilight. Two or three more climbs, the final one, the steepest, done in the dark. I remember I’m not on the normal bike I use for this sort of ride, the gears don’t go as low as my knees would like. A bat flitters past my head. At the summit I see the outskirts of Bristol sparkle in the distance. With the end in sight and the hills finished speed increases.

    The sodium glow of arterial roads and the neon lights of fast food joints. Roadworks around Temple Meeds confuse me so I give up, hop off the bike, follow “Pedestrians this way” signs until I find a cyclepath I think heads the right way. At ten to seven, 240 kilometres and twelve and half hours after leaving home, I pull up in Bristol city centre.

    I did also ride back but was so tired I bailed after 165km and jumped on a train at Petersfield. With Normandicat and Transcontinental No.7 there is plenty of stupidity to come. I don’t need to be ruining myself this early in the year.

    James Yorkston was as bloody brilliant as always and talked with humour and eloquence about songwriting and the art of making records. The Orielles were gloriously joyous. Looking forward to seeing both again in the spring (London and I’ll get the train).

    Thanks El and Liam for the recovery ride on Sunday, cooking dinner, and letting me crash at theirs on Sunday night.

  • Omloop van de West-Vlaanderen

    Omloop van de West-Vlaanderen

    “Half term next week so Newhaven ferry fully booked on Friday night and Saturday morning. Saturday night has space but price is higher than usual, 55 quid each return with bike, no… sorry, 60 bloody quid. Sodding half term.”

    “I have a car. We could drive over?”

    “98 quid with car going overnight Saturday, coming back Sunday evening.”

    “Daytrip? Eurotunnel – leave 04:34 Sunday, back 21:50. 60 quid all in”

    “Do it! I’ll get the maps out.”

    — — — —

    “Forty-five minute drive to De Panne. Could do a loop out to Gent? Ooh, hang on, we could ride to Roubaix and try and sneak in to the velodrome.”

    “Fucking sweet!”

    — — — —

    Which is why at 3.45am on a Sunday morning we’re driving through cones on the M20 looking at the time and the distance left to Folkstone thinking “This is going to be tight!”

    We just make it and drive straight on to the train. By 7.30am local time we’re spinning through De Panne looking for a cash machine so we can get some breakfast from the bakery we spotted as we drove into town.

    Out of town we bash into a headwind. A headwind we know will stay with us for the first 100km of the ride. It’s not brutal but stiff enough for the effort to be felt. A few kilometres on quiet Sunday morning main roads before turning onto narrow lanes across arable land. Rows of trees and canals accompany us here and there. Sunrise is glorious, the temperature slowly rising. Roads twist and turn between large fields. The horizon is low and flat in every direction. Church spires silhouette against the pale dawn sky. Cyclists coming the other way seem to be going remarkably fast for what appears to be little effort. We start to think of the tailwind we’ll have back to the coast this afternoon.

    Somewhere George picks up a flat, a tyre lever is snapped, there’s some swearing, and then a valve is bent. We continue. A couple of kilometres later we stop to change the tube again.

    Near Diksmuide we pass the Trench of Death, a remnant of the First World War trench system. A tall tower can be seen not so far away in the town, the Yser Tower, a peace monument. They are the first signs of a dark and horrifying part of the history of Flanders. We’re riding right through the Western Front, the day is likely to be filled with reminders of the human expense of war.

    A bit further on we enter the city of Roeselare which seems to be entirely shut. I had planned this as coffee stop number one. Out with the phone and Google Maps to the rescue, seems there should be a bakery close to our route out of town. We turn onto a side street and can’t see anything obvious but then spot the word Brood above the big wooden door of an imposing looking building. On the steps is a black board with the word Open written in chalk. I lean my bike against the wall and try the door. Inside I find a fine bakery with a coffee machine. Yes! Caffeine!

    We chat to the owner who tells us about the 1970 Road World Champion, Jean-Pierre Monseré, from nearby in the city, who was killed in a road race the following year when he was hit head on by a car driver who drove onto a closed race circuit. Tragically his young son was killed on his bike by a driver a few years later. Before we leave he hands us a couple small pastries on the house “for the road”. Carefully wrapped in a serviette we place them in jersey pockets. Given the headwind they will almost certainly come in handy later.

    Back into the headwind towards Wevelgem, across the river Leie, and loop around to the east of Roubaix. Ice tea on the forecourt of a tiny petrol station in a town straddling the French border. We turn back to the north, out of the wind at last. Through a housing estate and bouncing across some kerbs we turn into the famous velodrome.

    It’s empty and looks a little scruffy, but this is the place of legends. Today there are just some bored teens smoking in the top corners of the grandstand. We lap it a few times then climb to the top of the banking to sit in the sun. I remember the Roeselare pastry in my back pocket.

    Out of town it’s slightly downhill and the wind is now at our backs. We hammer along. On the corner of a quiet square in a small French town we spot an open bar.

    “Small coffee and a small beer?”

    “Yeah”

    “Deux café, deux Jupiler, s’il vous plait”

    Across the river Leie again, back into Belgium. I recognise the Belgian side of town from the ride to Copenhagen in October We’re heading for the Kemmelberg, the cobbled climb famous from Gent-Wevelgem and Three Days of De Panne. For the first time in 120km the land starts to undulate, it starts to feel like Spring Classic country. We can see the Kemmelberg from miles away, it’s the only hill. It’s not high but from a distance it looks substantial enough. Gradually it nears. We approach on roads that narrow as they steepen, and then we turn onto the cobbles on the “easy” side, climbing to the memorial to French soldiers at the summit. We loop around to the bottom of the punchier steeper side. George climbs it. I decide to take a photo of him climbing it is sufficient, I’m starting to feel a bit bonkyfaint and dreaming of food.

    Starting off for Ypres we speed (downhill plus tailwind) through the narrow roads until George appears to be front wheel drifting around a fast corner. It doesn’t look deliberate which is confirmed by the exclaimed “Shiiiit!” He’s clipped a stone, punctured, and somehow managed to hold it without hitting the floor or sliding into the ditch opposite. Skills. Standing on the steps of the Kemmel No.1 French Cemetery I delve into a jersey pocket for an inner tube.

    A short while later we enter the city of Ypres via a gate in the ramparts and trundle through the cobbled streets to the Menin Gate. The list of names of lost or unidentified soldiers is staggering, nearly 55 thousand in total. That’s 20 thousand more than the entire modern population of the municipality of Ypres. It’s difficult to comprehend, yet is but a fraction of the total loss of the First World Way. The nearby Battle of Passchendaele alone cost nearly half a million lives. Just one battle in a war of four years.

    We really need food, 150km has been ridden on snacks and a couple of coffees. We head towards the middle of the city and the In Flanders Fields Museum keeping an eye out for somewhere to eat. I spot the flashing lights of a kebab shop down a side street. Excellent. It’s reached the point where anything will do and the quicker the better. Burger, chips, Coca Cola. Sorted. That’ll get us back to De Panne. However it’s later than we hoped so rather than our planned route via Vleteren for a beer from the Trappist brewery we consult the map for a more direct way back. Not the really direct 40km of N8 cyclepath way as that would be unpleasant and dull. We work out a smaller roads alternative that runs parallel. We roll along the flat roads at a fair pace, the pushing wind helping the legs out. Sunset is a mirror image of sunrise. We flick on our lights and by the time we start to ride along the canal path back to Veurne the dark has absorbed the landscape around us.

    From Veurne we retrace this morning’s road back into De Panne, 195km ridden. We’re knackered and hungry (again/still). Time to head home, via whatever food we can find on the way. Which turns out to be Burger King at the Eurotunnel terminal. It tastes mighty fine.

    Route ridden

  • Tour de Causse

    Tour de Causse

    Damn, my ears are cold. Freezing fog in the valley, ice forms on the brake levers. Skittery tyres in the corners… pssht, let a little bit of air out. Wheels feel more settled. The cold damp air mutes the clangs of sheep’s bells beyond an elderly stone wall. The fog thins gradually up the hillside, a white disc appears veiled by layers of cloud. Blue sky by the time I reach the village on the edge of the causse. Winter bright. Climb some more, effort and sunlight warms me. Roads undulate atop the limestone plateau. Gnarled trees, moss covered limestone walls. Roads sparkle, hope there’s no black ice hiding beneath, slot into the car tyre tracks. Shadows stretch along slopes. A buzzard every kilometre, crossing unseen territories. A view over the sacred city built under and into the tall cliffs. Down and around and up and down and around gorges carved through the limestone by rivers. Squiggles and giggles. Across the biggest of the rivers, the Dordogne. Trace it’s edge, hugging the cliffs that cascade to its side. A suspension bridge back across the river by the village with the church carved into the rock face. The shadows the other side of the river are still frozen, a world sprinkled with icing sugar. Frosted trees glisten where the sun doesn’t reach this time of year. Half iced branches stretch golden tips into the sun light. It’s pretty but so cold. Turn back across the river at the next bridge, wave to the cycle club in matching kit, on to the flood plain under the weakening sun, it’s warmth fading. Flat straight roads through fields and dog barks. Back home past the sleepers and the jam factory.

  • 24 Hour Partir People

    24 Hour Partir People

    I can see the sea from the front door so heading south on the bike is not possible. I can choose any combination of east, west, north, but nothing to the south, that way is very wet and out of bounds. Or that would be the case if there wasn’t a ferry port a little way along the coast. A few times a year I go and ride in the south. The north of France.

    Dieppe has been the starting point for long rides to elsewhere, a handful have been two or three day loops, but mostly it’s been daytripping. The timings of the ferries mean I can get an overnight ferry to Dieppe in Normandy and return to Newhaven the following evening. Even with the ride to and from home it means being away for just 24 hours. In that time you can go for a long ride (or a shorter ride with a lot of cafe stops) and still fit in a late lunch of three courses and half a bottle of wine in Dieppe before trundling back onto the ferry for a long snooze home. I’ve even managed to easily squeeze in a long ride, a swim, lunch, and a sleep on the beach before catching the ferry. However there was one time when it was quite headwindy and there was barely time to grab some bread and cheese before sprinting to the dock.

    I sometimes drag friends with me but mostly I’ve slunk off on my own as it’s a last minute decision to go. Usually you can book a crossing with a bike fairly late so you can monitor the weather forecast up until a day or two before heading across the channel. If I’m feeling extravagant I’ll book a cabin but most times I’ve slept in a not-quite-comfortable-enough chair or on the floor. It’s not fully overnight as the crossing is relatively short and you get kicked off the boat in the early, early hours of morning. At least the first couple of hours are ridden in dark silence and a good chunk of kilometres can be knocked off before coffee or breakfast can be found. That is unless you brave the vending machine coffee in the small port building after passport control. I recommend waiting until a cafe can be found open. One of the great things about France is that a lot of villages and almost every town will have a bakery and a cafe bar that will be open from 6.30 or 7am, even on Sundays. Don’t hold me to that but I’ve always managed to find an often spectacularly good patisserie and a bar open that early.

    Before riding in Normandy and Picardie I’d only ever passed through northern France on motorways and assumed it was flat and just a bit dull, all the good stuff started about half way down the country when the big hills and mountains started to rise up. Now I’ve realised that I was completely wrong. Away from the autoroutes, on the small roads and narrow lanes the subtle beauty of the north of France becomes apparent. A description I once read stated upper Normandy was a “vast area of quiet landscape and dimly undulating plateaus”. That’s pretty much spot on.

    The land feels the same but subtly different to home. Tall chalk cliffs rise from the sea, a mirror image of the white cliffs where the South Downs meet the sea. The names of the ferries that back and forth are named after these coastlines, Côte d’Albâtre and The Seven Sisters. These cliffs are the edge of a large chalk plateau that extends far inland. Unlike Sussex where you climb the Downs and drop back down the other side in Normandy once you climb up onto the plateau you stay up on it. There are many shallow river valleys cutting through the plateau adding to the gentle undulation. However you can find plenty of short sharp climbs if you stick to the coast, the roads over the cliffs dip in and out of many fishing villages and small harbours where those rivers meet the sea. The chalk is from the Upper Cretaceous period, the same stuff that forms the English South and North Downs. Being across the sea it would be nice to think it was part of the same lump of rock but the south east English Downs are part of the Weald-Artois Anticline which runs under the French landscape further up the coast in Picardie and Artois. The name here is Pays de Caux which on first hearing I thought meant Land of Chalk. The word Caux is similar to an old Norman word for chalk, chaux (which in some English-French dictionaries translates to lime, linking back to limestone, or chalk). However this train of thought is all two plus two equals five. Caux is derived from an old Gaulish word for the Celtic or Belgic tribe, the Caletes, that lived in this part of France in the iron age. There is also a small area called Pays de Bray within the Pays de Caux, the Bray part coming from Gaulish for mud. It’s the same stuff as the Weald in Sussex. In my head Normandy is the “lands of chalk and mud”, an extension of the land I ride through in Sussex. It may not be entirely etymologically or geologically correct but it has more poetry.

    There’s a feeling of space, emptiness almost. Away from the few main roads narrow lanes crisscross large fields and small forests. Horizons are wide and the sky large. There are few hedgerows so if there’s wind there’s nowhere to hide. Wind turbines scattered widely across the landscape, a constant reminder that at some point in the ride there’s a chance of getting battered by a headwind. I’ve had to stand on the pedals on the flat before. The silence and emptiness also reminds that this place has a sombre recent history. Every village seems to have a prominent war memorial. If you stop to read the names you realise the loss of life in this area was high in both world wars, the Western Front not far to the east and the landing beaches along the coast. The first day long ride I did here was based on the route of the Tour des Trois Vallees, an annual event that has been running for over 40 years to commemorate the Dieppe Raid in 1942. This connects back to home with preparation for the raid having taken place in Hidden Valley.

    There are the green and yellow fields of wheat and rape recognisable from home but also potatoes and sugar beet. In autumn you often see piles of root vegetables by the side of the road on the edges of muddy fields, the smell of earth strong. Flax, destined to become linen, was something new to me. I once got so mesmerised by the translucent green shimmer of a huge field of the stuff, that I stopped just to watch. As my eyes adjusted to the scene I became aware of hundreds of white butterflies skipping about the breeze above the crop. There’s so little light pollution here on clear mornings thousands of stars fill the darkness above. I’ve seen hares and owls early in the mornings just before sunrise. Voles and mice have scurried along the verge next to me, deer have watched me from fields. The sound of larks in the sky above me transport me back to the Sussex downs. There are no sheep though, it’s cows and dairy farming here.

    It’s a fantastic place to ride, quiet roads, beautiful landscape, great food, good coffee. Compared to the south east of England it is so very relaxing, traffic is nothing like as busy as England, in fact you can go hours without seeing a car, and drivers treat cyclists with respect. I’ve never had a close pass or someone pull out on me or try to run me off the road in France. I’ve not ridden there enough yet to be able to ride without a map but it’s getting close. There’s no scale map with full legend in my head but there are constellations of towns and villages that I can find my way between, a sketch of a map with bars and bakeries marked on it. I’m learning which towns have a market on a Sunday. I always carry a musette for cheese. There are favourite roads; the D100, the D149 between Fresnoy-Folny and the Foret d’Eu, that bit of the D211 through the avenue of trees, and all those lanes that softly squiggle up the sides of the valleys, as well as regular bars, the one in Londinieres springs to mind immediately.

    …thinking about it I probably could manage without a map.

    My friends over at Kinesis pinched one of my routes and made a rather lovely film about such things that can be seen here

  • Armistice Day 200

    Armistice Day 200

    After storms on the south coast and a rough crossing we rumble down the ferry ramp into France in calm, dry weather. It’s really early, a bit after 4am local time, body clocks on 3am and barely a handful of hours of sleep. Rather than heading straight onto the road we nip into the port waiting room for a (pre)breakfast of vending machine coffee (fairly awful) and madelaines (far better).

    Sheltered by the cliffs and town we had been fooled into thinking it hadn’t been too windy, but up on the plateau away from Dieppe we feel the strong wind that had been forecast. However away from the lights of the port and towns along the cliffs our eyes adjusted to the dark and hundreds of stars come into focus.

    Venus hangs low over the forest on the hill between Grandcourt and the Bresle valley. Through silhouettes of trees we climb in the dawn light, our lights picking out yellow leaves stuck to the road like soggy confetti. Over the hill in the town of Blangy-sur-Bresle light shines from the bakers and butchers already open early on Sunday. The market is being set up on the streets around the church. Fifty kilometres done and the sun about to rise it’s time for a proper breakfast. A couple of chocolate pastries are bought from one of the two patisseries on the town square before looking for an open café for coffee.

    Exiting the café I’m hit by an amazing smell. Initially I think it’s the rotisserie van parked opposite but then notice behind me a massive bubbling vat of chicken in a tomato sauce. Next to it are huge tins of haricot beans. We guess it must be a variation on cassoulet on the go for lunchtime. Oh heck, it smells good. Maybe we could just hang around here all day? (I make a mental note that it is market day on a Sunday here and therefore need to plan a daytrip that passes through here at lunchtime.)

    Out of town and out of the valley we’re back up on a plateau. Our direction has changed to slighty northeast for a while so the wind gives us a pleasant nudge along as we watch the sun break the horizon and the landscape come alive into vibrant colour. By the time we drop down into the Somme valley it’s grey and the air damp and cool. It’s no surprise, this is what was forecast. We’ve also turned south again, straight into the wind. The clear skies and sun up to now have been a bonus. As we join the gravel path along the Somme a few kilometres north of Amiens the predicted rain starts, lightly at first but much harder by the time we arrive at the war memorial in Amiens. We watch proceedings for a few minutes before finding a café near the cathedral to hide from the rain. Unfortunately we’re too early for lunch but I remember there is a spare pastry in my framebag. That keeps us going until we find the small supermarket on the way out of the city. Like the good audaxers we are we stand eating supermarket sandwiches in the drizzle.

    We retrace our steps and raindrops back along the river to the edge of the city and start to climb out of the valley. The next 40km are on the D211 and I know it well having ridden it three or four times previously. It’s a main road but quiet, and undulates back to the Bresle valley. I’ve always managed to ride it fairly fast even on bikes loaded with panniers so think we’ll get back to Dieppe in plenty of time for a warm meal and a bottle of wine before zonking out on the ferry home.

    I forgot to factor in the wind.

    As soon as we hit the D211 we are also hit in the face by the wind. We have to pedal down the hills, and my favourite section of road which is flat and passes through those lovely little avenues of trees you get on French roads is an absolute teeth grinding slog into the wind. Our average speed is dismal. Simon mentions that at least the audax time limit is generous. I point out that the DFDS ferry schedule isn’t. On the plus side the rain stops and the sun almost comes out again.

    All the village and town war memorials we pass on the way back have fresh wreaths and tricolours flying, and it seems every village has a memorial. In one town posters line the road with photos of the dead, the same family name repeated. Even the smallest villages have monuments to the lost.

    The shop and the bar in the village in the valley aren’t open so our bags are emptied of remaining food before we embark on the final quarter of the ride. Not only will the wind still be against us but so will the terrain. I know this next section is much hillier than anything we’ve encountered today. Not large hills but a constant up and down, and with 160km in the legs, the last forty into the wind. Some quick sums and we’re good to catch the ferry but time for a meal is off the table.

    In fact we tumble down the rough back street into Dieppe with only ten minutes to spare. Time enough to grab a baguette, some cheese, and some ham, from a corner shop. Straight through check-in and passport control and onto the ferry. Pints are purchased and we tuck into dinner.

  • Newhaven to Nyhavn

    Newhaven to Nyhavn

    SATURDAY

    The smell of baking bread wafts through the air as I climb the hill away from the ferry. The streets are still and quiet. Beyond the light pollution stars prickle the black sky. The air smells of recently ploughed earth and the sound from wind turbines overhead accentuate the strength of the wind. For a couple of hours I ride in darkness, red lights on turbines blinking all around. The huhuhuhooo of a tawny owl somewhere in the woods. The land feels familiar, I’ve ridden this way before, rolling through farmland and woodland, but maybe not these exact roads. Descending gently into a village I spot the glow of a patisserie, first stop of the day. On a bench under a tree on the village square I sit and eat breakfast.

    Darkness fades into the twilight of dawn which in turn fades into day. There’s the sudden recognition of a bend in the road and a short rise through some trees. I am close to the River Somme. The sun is low in the sky as I turn onto the flat path along the river. The rise and fall starts again as soon as I turn away from the river. I’ve not ventured further east of the Somme before so the rest of the day will be new to me until I reach the suburbs of Ghent.

    At a crossroads I spy a petrol station and cafe. Perfect, a caffeine hit is required. The landscape continues to roll and undulate north-eastwards and the day gets warmer as the sun climbs higher. Knee warmers and arm warmers are removed and tucked under bungee straps. In a town somewhere I stop of coffee and pastries, enough to get me to the Belgian border. Turns out it isn’t quite enough so somewhere along the way I stop for a quiche when I spot another bakery. Drinks topped up but I still have to use a cemetery tap a few kilometres later. I really wasn’t expecting to need cemetery taps in October.

    Giant molehills appear on the horizon, artificial hills betraying a mining past. The towns nearby are build on grids and concentric circles. Suddenly everything feels very different. Roads are flatter and straighter, houses get squarer, the shapes of roofs change. France seems to be melding into Belgium long before the border. Roads get even straighter, I cross many small waterways until I enter the outskirts of Armentieres. Through the town I stop for a cold drink before joining a path along a river. I realise this is La Lys which I will follow almost all the way to Ghent, though it will change it’s name to Leie in Belgium.

    I play hopscotch with the border, which follows the middle of the river with odd little deviations beyond each bank occasionally, for a while until crossing a bridge the signs and languages change and I’m definitively in Belgium. I hug the river with occasional detours into towns and around industrial estates. I pass through places made famous by the spring classics; Wevelgem, Harelbeke, Kuurne.

    250 kilometres ridden and energy is flagging. Crisps and Fanta from a vending machine in the middle of nowhere. A digital display shows 18:30 and still 23 degrees. Flickers of cramp. Head down, let’s get this done. The next 20 kilometres drag. I track railway lines to the edge of the city centre where I transfer from the smooth cycle path to cobbled streets and look for my hotel. I start thinking about dinner and beer.

    289 kilometres, 14 hours and 4 minutes.

    https://www.strava.com/activities/1902631308

    SUNDAY

    I wake up late and make the most of the breakfast buffet, it’s going to be another long day. Not as long as yesterday but over 200 kilometres. It’s not too much of a concern though as it is going to be very flat and according to the forecast I should have a cross-tailwind all day. Out of Ghent my route passes through many nondescript towns that remind me of those mid-week non-World Tour Belgian not quite Classic races you see on Eurosport in spring. Soon the towns give way to countryside and long straight tree-lined roads. It being Flanders cobbles make their presence felt now and again.

    For some stupid reason I have routed myself into Antwerp unnecessarily along a cyclepath next to a motorway for some 20 odd kilometres. It’s noisy and not very pretty. I plug my headphones in and zone out for an hour. Between a long queue in a small supermarket, road works, traffic lights, and more roadworks I seem to lose an hour in Antwerp. I make a note to avoid this place in future. The pedestrian tunnel under the river is fun though.

    The 35 kilometres after Antwerp follow a river and two canals. Flat apart from little ramps at the locks at regular intervals, climbing in tiny increments. Somewhere in a busy town market weaving in and out of pedestrians I crossed a dotted line painted across the cycle lane with NL painted on the far side. Things seem to get even straighter and flatter, though I am sure this is not actually possible. Houses get fancier, more modernist looking, and towns are built on grids and order. Everything just seems a little neater and tidier. It’s all very De Stijl. Cyclists and pedestrians get priority everywhere, it’s like a dream. Here the car is not king. Every path side cafe and bar is bustling, bikes racked up outsides, kids playing, adults drinking and eating. And there seems to be a cafe or bar on every corner. I make a mental note to come back and explore the Netherlands far more slowly.

    Ice Tea and a Magnum on the edge of Tilburg. More straight roads, canal paths, and a dyke that snakes along the river Waal. A sinking feeling as I turn onto what I expect to be a bridge that turns out to be a little jetty. Shit. I didn’t realise there was a foot passenger ferry on today’s route, and there is absolutely no sign of one. Clearly at sundown on a Sunday there are no ferries.

    Fuck!

    Phone out and hit up Google Maps.

    …Panic over. Detour to a motorway bridge eight kilometres up river and then follow my phone until I pick up the plotted route on a bridge in Arnhem. I follow the line on the Garmin up a hill to a hostel for the night.

    240 kilometres, 11 hours and 20 mins.

    https://www.strava.com/activities/1905282571

    https://www.strava.com/activities/1905282998

    MONDAY

    The ‘short’ day, roughly 180km planned from Netherlands into Germany. Graham Greene’s Our Man In Havana (I forgot how very good the book is) and David Bowie in my left ear for company. I was expecting cooler temperatures today so am wearing 3/4 lengths and a long sleeve jersey. This turns out to be a mistake, by midday a town centre digital display indicates 29 degrees. It’s October f.f.s., tea and cake season, not more Ice Tea and Magnums.

    A petrol station snack stop potato latke turns out to be a hamburger. Oh well, fuel is fuel. Fizzy ice tea. Something resembling a hill about halfway, just before the border. Not much of one but offers two minutes of freewheeling down the other side.

    Other than that a day of long straight flat roads and autumn colours. Towards the border the land becomes more agricultural, big farms and large fields. Many stables, horse country. There’s a feeling of mid-west America. With no hills or mountains the landscape reveals it’s changes slowly and subtlely. Netherlands all very neat and tidy, lots of waterways. Germany a little messier, a little more undulating, just as many waterways. Architecture becomes more austere and imposing. Red brick and green paint. Three cats sit on a stable door, looking like an 1970’s Athena poster. I’ve seen more windmills in Germany than the Netherlands. On a map a border may be a distinct line, in reality countries blend together gradually.

    Third day tiredness is combatted with double espressos all day long. I stop for the night in a town where nothing is open (seems Monday is the quiet day in the protestant countries) except Lidl. A seven euro random-picnic dinner in a motel. I wash my kit in the shower and fall asleep.

    180 kilometres, 8 hours and 22 minutes.

    https://www.strava.com/activities/1906686986

    TUESDAY

    Drying my shorts with a hairdryer after again I’ve made the most of the breakfast buffet. Big fields, vast horizon. The faint odour of horse shit. The stronger stink of a turkey farm. The longest straightest roads I’ve seen since South Dakota. 10km straight, slight kink, 4km straight.

    Only 2 gears needed this morning, one for ever so slightly uphill, one for ever so slightly downhill. Rummaging in framebag for the babybels snaffled from the motel breakfast platter. A double decker train full of cars like little toys. Singing (shouting) along to the ‘long ride shuffle’ playlist.

    Right here, right now
    there is no other place I want to be

    I was alive and I waited, waited
    I was alive and I waited for this

    Drinking in the morning sun
    Blinking in the morning sun

    …like everybody else
    Just be like everybody else
    Just be like everybody else
    Be like everybody else
    Be like everybody else

    Ah, thoughts all seem to stray to places far away
    I need a change of scenery

    Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes I swear I can see your soul

    It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down
    I had the radio on, I was drivin’
    Trees flew by, me and Del were singin’ little Runaway
    I was flyin’

    And all the world is football-shaped
    It’s just for me to kick in space
    And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste
    And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
    Senses working overtime

    If you go down winding roads
    Only winding roads will follow you
    Hold on to the thoughts that matter
    Think back and remember more
    They are yours
    Time stops when you’re always moving

    Celebrate it
    Anticipate it
    Yesterday’s faded
    Nothing can change it
    Life’s what you make it

    More and more straight roads. A change in the land, nearing a river, a hinterland that reminds me of Essex north of Tilbury. I always feel there’s something sinister about these places. Reeds and red tipped turbines. A bright orange ferry over the river whilst eating a pastry.

    Beyond the river ditches and dykes, riding on river defences and shiny black cobbles before the roads straighten again. Fields of cranes, the birds honking warnings as I approach. Right angle corners.

    40km to go. More straight roads. So many straight roads. And cobbles. Riding on patterns.

    Sitting on a curb staring at petrol pumps, an espresso and a Snickers to hand. Plus an Ice Tea, obviously.

    The land starts a slight roll. Three gears needed this afternoon. Convoluted cyclepaths lead me through the city. I get to my booked apartment and discover I have to pick up the keys from 3km back the other way. Always read the details properly. Idiot. One and a half pizzas for dinner, the other half saved for breakfast, it’s an early start tomorrow.

    195 kilometres, 8 hours 53 minutes.

    https://www.strava.com/activities/1908603572

    WEDNESDAY

    Up and out with the commuters and school kids at bus stops. A drop of chain lube on a squeaky jockey wheel. Rumble across a metal gantry onto a ferry jetty. No sign of a ferry or people. After Sunday, paranoia that I misread the online timetable. I’m sure I double checked, the winter timetable started yesterday so only mornings and evenings from this week. I don’t want to have to ride into Hamburg to find a bridge. With my mitt I wipe the dew from the timetable pinned up. Yes, 8.10am for the last ferry of the morning. I’m half an hour early. A fruitless lap of the houses looking for coffee. When I return there are commuters on the jetty watching the sun rise above the Elbe. From behind a container ship the small yellow ferry appears.

    A second breakfast with petrol station flowers. Is the light softer, paler today? A slight haze or dirty glasses or tired fuzzy eyeballs? Probably all three. What day is it? Trees glow golden in the early light.

    Riding through a half built housing estate. A disappointing coffee and bun from a cafe near a bus station. Two kilometres later pass a lovely looking bakery. Such is the lottery of grabbing food whilst you know you can rather than risking another 30km with possibly nothing but fields.

    The landscape changes once more. It feels more intimate, more woodland, narrower horizons, small hills. Bumps really, but they require gear changes. The legs are feeling the 1000km in the last 4 and a half days. Oh, that means only 100km to the boat to Denmark. There’s time for lunch at a Greek restaurant. It comes served with a liqueur in a Meteora shot glass. A nudge towards the Transcontinental, a sign?

    A church spire amongst trees across a field. Wedging a tyre lever between front discs to stop that damn squeal. A junction that looks like France rather than Germany.

    The afternoon isn’t quite going to plan. I am hoping to get to ferry by 5(ish) but I discover I’ve made a couple of routing errors. The first one is when I find myself on a motorway slip road. Fortunately I have a second route plotted so I find my way onto my alternative route which happens to be just the other side of the same town. This one gets me closer to the bridge across Fehmarn Sound but also tries to send me down the motorway via the back entrance of a petrol station. Out with the phone and Google Maps again. Finding the entrance to the cyclepath across the bridge Kraftwerk’s Europe Endless starts in my earphone.

    Europe, endless

    Endless endless, endless endless

    Europe, endless

    Endless endless, endless endless

    A wind rises. Flags stiffen. Roll the sleeves back down, zip up jersey. A closed road and a pretty town with nice looking bars and bakery. I would stop but I’m determined to get a ferry before sundown. Google Maps and Garmin bodge get me to the ferry terminal at one minute to six. Quarter past six departure to Denmark.

    From the deck I watch the sun set over the Baltic Sea. Spag bol and a Carlsberg for dinner on the ferry, and then roll off the boat straight into motel reception.

    205km, 11 hours and 5 minutes.

    https://www.strava.com/activities/1910817902

    THURSDAY

    After a good eight hours sleep I’m ready for the last day. I have breakfast in the deserted motel restaurant watching trucks trundle off the ferry. Out in the dawn gloom I’m reminded that I’ve lucked out with five days of pretty much perfect weather up to now. There’s no rain though so time to crack on, less than 200 kilometres today.

    The wind has changed direction too, damn. Legs feel tired. Sixth day fatique or that damn cross-headwind? An erect windsock and blown sideways for three kilometres across a bridge.

    For lunch the most incredible roast beef sandwich and the sun comes out. Now i just need the wind to shift to my back.

    Out of town the hills start. Ok, they barely count as hills but compared to anything I’ve seen since France they are hills. My legs are telling me they are hills and added to the wind the going gets slow. In a tunnel of trees the wind picks up and I find myself in a snow globe of yellow leaves. Never far from the sea I catch glimpses regularly, and ride along the edge of a fjord for a while.

    My route is beautiful but devoid of shops so the next 70km is done on one bottle of water. I knew I should have bought a spare bun for the musette at lunchtime. No peanut M&Ms left in the framebag, no snaffled goods from the breakfast buffet. One day I’ll learn to carry spare food at all times. I’m tired and hungry. As nice a place for a puncture as anywhere I suppose. A bonk or sense of humour loss is imminent. Saved by a kœmpe snegl (pastry, custard, cinnamon, icing – it’s so good I’m tempted to go back for a second) on the outskirts of Køge. There are fifty kilometres left on my planned route I reckon. A couple of hours. A sign for Copenhagen, 38km. The “fuck it, let’s just get this done” switch is flicked in my head. Garmin off, turn right. It’s not pretty but it’s functional and fast. I’ve done 1250km of pretty, i can cope with mediocre for an hour or so. My average speed jumps about 3kph.

    I realise I’m passing a recommended bike shop on way into the city so swing by South Harbour Cycles to blag a bike box for the flight home. Liam, the owner, originally from England, makes me a coffee and says I can pick up a box tomorrow. You have to love a good local bike shop.

    A handful of commuter weaving kilometres and I pull up on the bridge at Nyhavn as somewhere bell rings for 6pm.

    182 kilometres, 9 hours and 57 minutes.

    https://www.strava.com/activities/1912674719

    TOTALS

    1290 kilometres

    5 days, 13 hours, 2 minutes.

    Five countries

    Four ferries

    Two magnums

    I lost count of espressos, ice teas, and pastries.

  • Not Quite The Hailsham 600 (reprise)

    Not Quite The Hailsham 600 (reprise)

    I walk through the door of the empty café. It’s almost 11am, prime Sunday brunch time.

    “Hello, you’re our first customer”, the girl behind the counter greets me. She looks bored as does another girl behind the counter looking at her phone.

    I’m soaked through and dripping water on the floor. My shoes squelch as I walk to the counter. I need a cup of tea and warm food.

    “This is usually our busiest time,” says the girl and points at the car boot fair flyer next to the till, “not sure they will be very busy today either.” I suspect it’s been cancelled as it’s tipping it down outside and has been for over an hour. The only people I’ve seen stood in a field were a bunch of waterproof clad detectorists up on the Downs a few miles from the Pewsey.

    I drape my jacket inside out over the chair so I don’t ruin the upholstery when I sit down. Within seconds there are puddles of water around me. I then notice two other girls reclining on the sofas by the window scrolling through the screens of their phones. I am outnumbered by staff four to one. It doesn’t look like they are going to have a busy shift. I drop a sugar lump into my tea.

    The rain continues to clatter down outside.

    – – –

    I’ve tweaked the route from the last time I attempted the Hailsham 600 which had already been amended from the official route sheet. A lot of El Supremo’s audaxes I find a bit main road heavy, and this one includes big chunks of the A272 which is I road I never ride out of choice. The two downsides of adapting the route is it’s now a bit more over-distance (623km compared to 611 on routesheet) plus main roads tend to iron out some of the lumps across hilly terrain. I’ve probably added to the climbing too. Since that last attempt I’ve ridden across parts of the counties included on this audax quite a few times so have used that experience to hopefully hone my version of the route a bit more. The plan is simple; ride steady but not fast, be efficient with the stops, keep pedalling, get some rest when at least 350km have been covered.

    The forecast for today is good but tomorrow looks less promising. The reason for trying this audax again this weekend is because it’s a bank holiday so I get Monday to recover rather than struggling through a day in the office on vending machine espressos. All week the forecast for Sunday has been changing and it did look like I’d be OK if I can get back by mid-afternoon. However yesterday it changed for the worse and it’s possibly going to rain all day. Heavily. I hope the Met Office have got it wrong.

    This time I’m starting at Pyecombe so can do the bit out to Hailsham and back first so I don’t have to ride past home to finish the ride. Psychologically this will help with the homeward stretch tomorrow afternoon. Starting off from home at 5am I cover this section quickly whilst the sun rises, without needing to navigate as I know the roads like the back of my hand. Before I know it I’ve covered 100km and arrive at the third control in Buckbarn services on the A24. I clock the ridiculous queues at the MacDonald’s so pop round to the Coop cash machine for a receipt. The man collecting for charity outside the Coop asks where I’m riding to. I fluff an answer about doing a little weekend tour to avoid the inevitable “Why?”

    After a stop in Storrington for breakfast I crack on for Chichester picking up a receipt from a cash machine on the way through as proof of passage and out towards Hampshire. The roads out here are familiar but not quite known. I find myself on a ridge looking down on the Meon Valley, then climbing Wheely Down, then I can see the Isle of Wight from Old Winchester Hill. Or maybe Old Winchester Hill and Wheely Down are the other way round? Somewhere after this a road is closed and I dart down a track along a stream around the back of some houses. Next up is New Alresford, past the watercress beds and across the narrow bridge by the ford and towards the Itchens, Stoke and Abbas. I feel a sudden pang of pain in my cheek and realise a wasp has flown into my face and got stuck under the strap of my helmet. ‘Kin hell, that hurt!

    Past the almost finished housing estate that was just foundations last time I came this way at Kings Worthy and to the next control at Sutton Scotney. I sit on the curb opposite the petrol pumps and eat a tub of pasta, two Tunnock’s Tea Cakes (for old time’s sake) and drink half a can of Red Bull. The next bit along the River Swift, a tributary of the River Test, is a favourite of mine. Heading west I gently climb up the valley towards Oxenwood, crossing from Hampshire into Wiltshire and onto the Wessex Downs. From Oxenwood there’s a fast descent to Great Bedwyn before I pop out on the A4 to Marlborough.

    The Downs out of Marlborough are like a rollercoaster ride, gradually rising and falling and rising before you dive off Hackpen Hill through a wide hairpin around the white horse. The shapes of the hills here respond to the slanted light of early evening which somehow simultaneously softens and accentuates the curves. They’re beautiful and riding them is like surfing frozen waves. Across this chunk of Wiltshire I seem to keep dropping in large steps towards the M4 corridor.

    Leigh Delamere motorway services have had a make-over since last being here. The choices of food have vastly improved. I’ve hit 300km in a couple of minutes over fifteen hours so there’s time for a longer stop and some dinner before the stint out to Wales. If I leave here before 9pm then I should be at Magor services 65km away by midnight(ish). That’s a 30 hour schedule which was my plan and enough of a buffer to get some sleep in Wales. If I can get a room at the hotel at the services that would be a bonus. At 3-4 hours it’ll work out an expensive sleep but a shower, some shut eye in a bed, and a change of kit will make tomorrow far easier. Worse-case scenario is I’m sleeping on the floor round by the cleaning cupboard again.

    The lights of Bath sparkle on the horizon to the south and I soon pop out at a junction on the A46 that I recognise from the Wander Wye audax earlier this year. I then ride the Wander Wye route in reverse as far as Chepstow. I’m not sure if riding the Cotswolds at night dark is easier than in daylight but some of the climbs seem shorter when you can’t see them. The light pollution of Bristol floods the sky to my left.

    I can see the Severn Bridge from a fair distance and like last time it seems to take an age to get to it. Then there’s the sodding road out to Magor. This part of the official route feels pointless. I know Magor services are the furthest control to fulfill the Audax UK distance requirements, but then you have to ride exactly the same road back to the bridge, and it’s not a nice road and Magor services aren’t all that. I realise there’s a hotel there making it easy to get a kip after breaking the back of the ride but I’d rather get across the bridge, buy something from the 24 hour petrol station on the A48/M48 roundabout on the edge of Chepstow, turn around, back over the bridge and settle down for a rest at the Severn View services on the English side. I’m sure the extra distance could be found on more interesting roads in the Cotswolds or across Wiltshire. The road to Magor is tedious.

    There’s no room at either hotel at Magor so I grab some food and bed down in the corner of the services around the corner from the 24 hour MacDonalds. The lights are too bright and the music too loud but I should be able to snooze a bit. Resting the legs for a while is what I need. I decide to try and be back on the road by 4am.

    Last time we did this ride the services were quiet overnight. Not this time. There is a steady flow of noisy groups of pissed kids talking (shouting) and laughing. Is this the post-club hang out for the kids of Chepstow on their way home from a big Saturday night out in Newport? Sleep seems almost impossible but I must be drifting in and out as three hours pass relatively quickly. A bit after 4am I get a coffee and hot apple pie from Maccy D and sit back down just as the music gets turned down. Oh great, now they turn the music down.

    The back of the bike feels squishy as I make to leave. A slow flat. Hey ho, better now than out on the road in the dark. Ten minutes later with a re-inflated tyre I wheel the bike through the doors past strange looks from early morning customers. I click onto autopilot for the stretch back to the Severn Bridge (passing various staggering drunks, Newport must be carnage at weekends) and then follow the Garmin back over the Cotswolds. Parts of the route are the same as the way to Wales so the long draggy climbs don’t come as too much of a surprise. The day slowly fades in to reveal thin light cloud, even slivers of what might be blue sky…or maybe just thinner cloud. From the top of the Cotswolds for as far as I can see to the east and south the sky looks promising. Maybe the forecast was a bit pessimistic after all. Back at Leigh Delamere for a second breakfast I check how I’m going. I’m still on a 20kph schedule with stops (excluding the sleep). That’s roughly ten hours home from here.

    Back outside light rain has started to fall. Actually it barely counts as light rain. It’s not really falling, a few specks of water floating on the wind. Two hundred kilometres to go and the areas I’ve ridden a few times over the last couple of years, easily manageable in my head, broken down into chunks – get to Pewsey, then up to Oxenwood, down the Swift Valley to Hurstbourne Tarrant, back to Sutton Scotney, across some lumps to Petersfield, then Midhurst via Harting to avoid the A272, and then it’s home roads and easy navigation.

    The rain is getting heavier as I head south past Chippenham and then through Calne. However it’s still not too heavy, under the trees the roads are still dry. If it’s like this all day then I can cope with it. My optimism is soon dashed, by the time I’m halfway up the climb towards Bishops Canning it is hammering down and any sense of brightness in the sky has disappeared. A flat grey extends in all directions and the views in every direction are hidden by veils of rain. Water flows out of fields into the roads, the gutters are torrents, the dips in the roads are like fords. Some car drivers seem oblivious to the conditions and rush by. A lowered black Beemer passes so close and fast that I get pulled along in the draft, uphill. Not much later I hear the sudden braking of a car behind me when the driver realises they aren’t going to get past me before the car coming the other way. I glance down and see the car headlight behind my leg far too close for comfort.

    This is not fun. Realistically I’ve got at least nine more hours of this, and I know I’m slowing because of the conditions. I decide to knock it on the head. I’m close to Pewsey (not as close as I’d like) and I’m sure there’s a train station there. By the village pub in Bishops Canning I duck into a bus stop and swipe at my phone to check train times. My fingers and the screen are both so wet it’s not having it plus there’s very little signal out here. An older chap parks up and asks how far I’m riding. I say I need to get to Brighton but I’m giving up and going to find a train station. He tells me that 65 years ago he rode from Ringwood to Cheltenham on a bell ringing tour then trundles off to the pub.

    I zip up all the layers and pull the buff around my neck and clamber back on the bike. I’m trying to remember how many hills there are across Pewsey Vale before I get to the village itself. I’m sure it’s more than I want it to be, and indeed it takes another forty minutes to get there by which time I’ve certainly had enough. I pull into the train station car park and push my bike on to the platform. Two hours to the first train to London. Right then, let’s hope the café or the pub are open…

  • Winging It

    Winging It

    Oh I’m here. Didn’t recognise it coming from that direction.

    A few hours of getting lost on home roads. Not lost as such but wandering, no fixed itinerary, no list of place names, no destination other than back home. Making it up as I go along. Reaquainting myself with Sussex. Apart from commuting it feels as though I’ve not ridden locally much this year. I’ve cast my eyes over other maps, Michelins rather than OS. Routes plotted and researched and re-plotted across other places, ferries and aeroplanes factored into rides. Recent rides to distant places has meant following a predefined route, deviating from it involving the need to pull a map from a pocket. Here I can meander, make it up as I go, change my mind as the fancy takes me. The only map needed the one in my mind.

    “Ah hang on if I go down here it joins up with that one and from there I can get to there and then to there.” Memories and lanes intertwine. Hundreds of previous rides imprinted on my memory. No route mapped out, no gps track to follow. A train of thought takes the place of a line on a little screen on my handlebars. Just ride and see where I end up. Maybe up to the Ashdown Forest. Over the Downs and zigzag north and east, looking for the little roads no one uses. It’s overcast and occasionally not-quite-rain floats in the air. Sunken lanes are dark and moist like cellars. Heavy trees wrap around me blocking what light is available. Within sight of the Ashdown I decide to turn for home, I don’t need or want the extra miles needed to loop over the forest.

    Flicking through the Rotadex of tea rooms in my head I turn south.

  • Flanders To The Alps: Notes On A Tour [Part 2]

    Flanders To The Alps: Notes On A Tour [Part 2]

    Day 7 – Montriond and Morzine (18km)

    Snooze.

    Into Morzine for a coffee.

    Snooze.

    Up to the lake for a swim.

    Snooze.

    Day 8 – Col de Joux Plane (55km)

    Over the Joux Plane to meet Nigel for coffee. Lunch at Col de Ranfolly. The Reilly looks a little out of place surrounded by full sussers.

    Day 9 – Four Cols (106km)

    Out early whilst it’s cool. First up (literally) Col de Corbier. Coffee at the top. Sweet descent through hairpins and fast straights. Damn, I want to ride up these. Up a different valley that feels properly Alpine and quite a bit Swiss, all pine trees and meadows and wooden chalets. Through Châlet to the Pas de Morgins, the Swiss border, freewheel a couple of k’s into Switzerland before turning back for an early lunch in Châlet.

    Up a dead end valley, on a road bike at least, to the base of Col de Bassachaux, a huge car park full of 4x4s, VW vans and armour clad downhillers. I feel a little out of place. I start the climb through tight switchbacks catching snippets of MTB’ers’ conversations as they pass overhead on the chairlift. Just below in the trees I can hear the BRRRPPP of gnarly tyres on the trails. From one corner I glance back at the cars and queues below to see someone do a backflip off a huge ramp. Three corners later the road surface worsens and steepens, I’m starting to see the benefit of this uplift malarky. At the top I can see Montriond below but am on the wrong bike to descend to Les Lindarets to pick up the road home.

    Head back the way I’ve come and back over Col de Corbier. Ice cream at the top. Accordian music is still playing on the cafe stereo.

    Day 10 – Col de la Joux Verte (28km)

    Lunchtime ride over the Joux Verte before the storm rolls in. From the top section I can see the zigzag of the path down from Col de Bassachaux.

    All evening thunder rumbles along the valley in waves. Read a book. Listen to podcasts.

    Day 11 – Les Alpes du Leman (117km)

    Descend the valley as far as the gorge and turn into the mountains that border Lake Geneva – les Alpes du Léman. Similar in height and feel to the Jura the other side of the lake. Short gentle climbs through forest to plateaus and meadows. Coffee and pastry in Habere-Poche and chat to some English riders settled here. One more climb then lunch in Megevette. Slow grind home in the afternoon heat from Taninges to Les Gets, bloody hell that back road is steeper than I remember. Emergency ice tea needed at the petrol station before the descent to Morzine. More storms in the evening.

    Day 12 – Homebound (82km)

    Head down the valley, it’s far easier (and way faster) in this direction. Into Thonon and then look for a nicer way around the lake. Nicer being relative, it’s still functional rather than pretty. Geneva airport is not easy to find a way into by bike, I end up riding through a couple of car parks, a section of service road, and then give up and push bike through the airport shopping mall above the train station. Twenty euros for a bike box from Swissport baggage and out with the tools.

    Out of the plane window I look down on Hastings, Fairlight, Romney Marsh and all the way to Dover, bringing the trip full circle.